Child of Stars
by Endles
Summary: Grace the Rhyhorn Racer is the best thing the people of Unova have seen in a long time and they cannot get enough. - the road Serena walks in her mother's shadow before arriving in Vaniville town and maybe becoming a legend of her own. Hints of Calem/Serena, possibly. Spoiler free!


**Child of Stars**

Grace the Rhyhorn Racer is the best thing the people of Unova have seen in a long time and they cannot get enough. In Serena's eyes mom is _mom_ and others should back down because mom belongs to her and dad. They don't though and that means that life is more or less a hectic mess of ever-changing cities and yet new racetracks to view from the sidelines. Dad gets sick of it before Serena turns ten. She already is, by then, has been since the beginning, but there's no way for her to slip away quietly like he does.

Things get a bit more bearable once the mood changes. Unova experiences a close-call, almost lapsing into a civil war or something of the like and for a while everyone in the world forgets silly insignificancies like racing and celebrities. Mom packs their bags in flurry and tugs Serena along. She purses her lips and squeezes mom's hand and tries not to hope.

They get a house in the big City where it's easy to get lost in the crowd and bask in the anonymity of masses. Mom gets a job as a waitress, as a tour guide, as a shop clerk, and wherever she goes people still know her name. As soon as things quiet down a bit the questions come flooding and Serena sits alone at home long nights and lone mornings and thinks that it was stupid of her to expect any better. Normalcy for them is a rare commodity, far too high-maintenance to keep up. Of course it wouldn't last, it never does.

And so, away mom flies, onwards and onwards to new victories. Serena starts calling her Grace the Rhyhorn Racer like everyone else, because that's who she is to her, nothing more.

At some point she meets The Boy. He is young and bright and eager and the world just isn't enough for him. She only spends a moment in his presence and sort of finds him intolerable (while at the same time _longs_ for a feeling like his) but the memory lingers, leaving a permanent brand on her mind and a taste for something bigger.

On a larger scale, though, The Boy brings along trouble and for the second time in two years the whole region is in uproar. This time Grace knows better, or so it seems when she comes crushing in, Rhyhorn on her tail and finally shouts out those words Serena's been waiting for so long that she's almost forgotten what they sound like. Hand in hand they bail and once more life becomes a changing scenery and a new bed every night until finally Grace's name fades into legends.

Kalos is a new start if there ever was one, but in Serena's life it's far too much to ask for questions with simple yes and no answers and so trouble comes looking for them. This time, though, it finds not Grace but Serena herself, and then she's being sucked in by a world that's both appalling and enticing in all its crude beauty.

It all begins with Calem, doesn't it? There are the others too, but out of them only Calem stands out like a beacon in the night. The boy is a gift of infuriation and inspiration wrapped in the sugar-coated smiles and honey-laced compliments he's none too shy to spare. He's there on the first day and his words are like spears slicing through her shields and Serena never learned to turn down a challenge, because she never was _faced _with one. Not like this, at least, because Calem is so much better than The Boy at pushing her buttons and barely leaves her room to breathe from her exhilaration, much less to back off.

So she agrees to take him on, one-on-one, head first and immediately regrets it afterwards. Grace only listens to her with amused eyes and sends her off with no warnings at all.

And when she steps out into the breeze and her nostrils flare at the scent of new beginnings she can kind of understand why Grace lived her life like she did; not looking back, no redemption despite all the mistakes she made and all the people she left behind. Calem is waiting for her, grinning in an invitation and she's far too immature still to pass on that, so she grins in response and feels like finally―_finally_―she's made peace with the stars she was born under.

**end.**

**A/N: **uhh I don't really know. I haven't even finished the game, but well… I just wanted to start building a head-canon right away.

I have a thing for absent parents, so sue me. My Serena is a good girl, well-behaved and a bit reserved, but easily fueled up, and Calem is just the kind of boy that enjoys messing with her, being all sweet on the outside but coy and playful within. The Boy Serena meets in Unova would be Nate, who obviously sets a spark in her to leave on a pokémon journey, but she doesn't act on it until Calem comes along and challenges her out of the blue.

Thanks for reading! Leave a note if you liked!


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